Cute Rubber Duck

Public art is a piece of art displayed in public places. In 1985, the Pont Neuf bridge in Paris was wrapped by cloth. It was an art project by Bulgarian artist Christo Yavachev. A representative public artwork in Korea is "Spring," the shape of marsh snail in Cheonggye square in Seoul. The public art is artists’ waving hands to the public, wanting to go out of a closed art museum and breathe with the public.

A big rubber duck recently made an appearance in Seokchon lake in Seoul. It is a public art titled "Rubber Duck" by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, which is globally popular. Since 2007, the duck has been visiting nations around the globe attracting people. Rubber Duck is cute, which is the point of attraction. Rubber Duck is a figure with 1:1 head-body ratio. When creating an animal character, its dearness is doubled by making the head bigger and the body smaller. In addition, the face line of the duck is round and the eyes are quite far apart, which makes the duck cuter.

Recently, there is growing demand for something cute. The revenue of domestic character industry reached 8.2 trillion won (approximately 8 billion U.S. dollars) last year. The number of population who keeps a pet amounts to 10 million in Korea. The popularity of Rubber Duck probably has something to do with this trend. Evolution psychologists say that the emotion that feels something cute is directly related to the instinct to preserve its species. Popular characters resemble a baby. Big head, small body, front-facing eyes, all of these characteristics give a naive impression. Human beings feel such figures cute and have evolved to protect such figures, namely babies.

Feeling adorable gives effects such as calmness and healing of heart. “Many audiences will feel healed when seeing my artwork," the artist of Rubber Duck said confidently. Hopefully, the Rubber Duck, which will stay in Seokchon lake until Nov. 14, gives presents of healing and calmness to many people. There are many Koreans who reached an age expected to behave like a mature adult but act otherwise. It leaves me a question as to whether a "nation in love with cute things" means a "nation resisting growing up."